July 12 Lourdes

Today is a day "off the bike". A zero day. I took the local bus to the pilgrim city of Lourdes at 10:15 this morning. It was a 25 minute ride and I hopped off the bus into the drizzle and searched out the Tourism Office. Once I had a city map in hand I was off, only God knew where. But soon I discovered a blue line painted along the streets that turned out to be a walking tour of Lourdes. There are a number of churches in town, but the main church, the shrine, THE SANCTUARY is why the pilgrims are here. The plaza around the Sanctuary church can handle 80,000 people. I saw "a league of nations" parading toward the Church. One youth group broke into clapping when they first laid their eyes on the Church in the distance. This is obviously a sacred place to Roman Catholic Christians. And I'm sure many others visit out of curiosity. I'm glad I got to spend some time praying here. I hope the paintings/murals are clear enough in my photos. There is a hotel for just about every saint including the "fuzzy" St Charles! Must be my friend at WCCC library. He's a little fuzzy in the head. "Buy me something Charlie".